


Your Big Black Cloud Will Come

by VoteForNuke



Series: 2020 MGS Summer Games [5]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, pre-mg2, warning for skin/clothes picking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26107783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoteForNuke/pseuds/VoteForNuke
Summary: Frank reflects on Big Boss during his birthday.
Relationships: Gray Fox/Gustava Heffner
Series: 2020 MGS Summer Games [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884223
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Your Big Black Cloud Will Come

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from a The Microphones song but I recommend Sad Little Songs by Brenton Wood for this.

Frank traced a scar in the table top with his fingernail. The overhead light cast their kitchen in a sickly yellow glow. This moment felt like a distant memory, bathed in sepia and fuzzy around the edges. Behind him, Gustava shuffled at the stove. He peeled up the head of a splinter, ground it between his fingers, then peeled up another. The next one lifted with a creak, and Frank paused when he realized just how thick it was, how the split ran to the center of the table. 

Shit. Nothing was safe under his hands. Not even a table. He laid it back, uselessly smoothing it down, as though the wood would somehow fuse back together. Frank’s nails turned on his thumbs, picking away at the dry skin and fresh scabs. This is all he did in his idle time; pick and tear and destroy. He’d picked one of his work shirts threadbare when he ran out of socks. The bedside table was a mess after his good intention of chipping at a paint flake. That’s all he did. Destroy. Mindlessly ripping and crushing and peeling. Nothing was safe, not even the sofa arm. 

‘An anxious man’, that was his label. ‘Anxious’. Frank had never even heard the word, let alone to describe him. ‘Jittery’, ‘nervous’. Never, not once had someone called him that. The words ‘cool’ and ‘level’ were synonyms for ‘Frank Jaeger’. 

He had once been the envy of man, of soldiers. Big Boss’ greatest, his favorite son, the stone cold killing machine Gray Fox. 

All of that was behind him, now. He had abandoned Big Boss, escaped to a land he swore to never step foot in, and now slept with a gun under his pillow. A gun. A disgusting little tool of cowards. It was painfully fitting. Frank laid down the blade and picked up the gun. But mostly, he picked at himself, his skin, his soul. 

“Close your eyes.” Gustava licked the icing off her fingers. Frank bowed his head, listening intently to her footsteps, how carefully she laid the cake on the table. She had an unworldly way of calming him. Just her existence, her weight in the bed beside him, the lingering smell of her perfume in the bathroom, coffee cups and cigarette butts marked with her lipstick. Her voice, the stray blonde hairs he found on his clothes. 

He never imagined he could fall in love. It seemed so trivial and useless. The only love he had was for Big Boss, his savior. He loved Boss the way zealots loved their god. Wholly, unceasingly, blindly. Leaving Big Boss felt like straying from the light. Frank was lost, now. A sinner. And it ate at him, a walking corpse filled with maggots that twisted and gnawed. 

And like the god of the Christians, he would make Frank pay. When Big Boss caught up to him, he’d turn him over to his satan; the satan he had bewitched to his favor. The one who punished the guilty, evened up their debts in flesh and blood. 

What a field day Ocelot was going to have reducating him. 

Gustava lit the candles, swearing under her breath when a match burned too close to her fingertips. “Okay,” she said after taking her place behind him, resting her warm hands on his shoulders. “Open your eyes.” 

Frank lifted his head. The candles were short, yellow and white ones that he recognized well. They rolled around in the silverware drawer, seeing the light of day at her grandfather's birthday and their one year anniversary. They felt like old faces, old friends. The cake was as simple as the others had been; pale frosting, choppily applied with knives and spoons, the cake itself strangely uneven. 

“It’s beautiful.” Frank looked up at her. Gustava smiled down at him, candle light dancing in her eyes. She was so beautiful. His angel of mercy. 

“Make a wish.” She patted his shoulders in playful excitement. 

Frank sighed, but closed his eyes. 

He wished this could last forever. He wished he wasn’t so selfish and would leave Gustava. Make a reasonable wish, he reprimanded himself. 

Fine. 

He wished he could protect her. 

Frank blew out the candles and Gustava kissed his cheek. 

“Did you make a good wish?” She asked as he began cutting him a slice. 

“The very best.” He smiled, sick to his stomach. 

“It’ll come true.” She laid the slice on his plate, licking stray icing from her fingers. “Only the good wishes come true. Just like you, when I wished for the perfect husband.” 

The corner of Frank’s mouth tugged up in a bashful smile before he leaned in for a kiss.


End file.
